You have to give Mr. Carter credit for taking over the aging, and reportedly financially strapped Hollywood institution of Swifty Lazar’s annual Oscar Party, and making it his own. Although some of the Old Guard thought him an interloper, the younger generation of self-promoters were of the ‘spell your name right’ Publicity Hound School. Vanity Fair is and was a glossy Fan Magazine, that threw in some actual informative, even ground breaking reportage. The ‘as if’ being that it just wasn’t an updated Photoplay:

Recall, that the ersatz political radical Christopher Hitchens had a regular column, not to speak of his petulant and acerbic understudy James Wolcott. And the political commentator Michael Kingsley, once the political minion of Wm. F. Buckley Jr., whose jejune political insights are designed not offend the political sensibilities of its readership.

Never forgetting the copious collection of advertisements, offering the latest fashions in clothing, shoes and perfume, with the ubiquitous scratch and sniff feature. The subscriber gets her/his magazine in clear plastic wrapper. I look at this magazine, and feel like I need a refreshing dose of reality, after inhabiting the World According to Graydon Carter, for the half hour it takes to turn its pages. I usually take out the trash or clean the toilet! I almost forgot the coverage of the the Latest Star/Starlet and his/her ‘provenance’, or that stroke of genius The Proust Questionnaire.